


Silver Lining

by Silent_but_Artemis



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Black One - Freeform, Competition, Flying, Friendship, Gen, Hurt Poe Dameron, Post-Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Suspension of Disbelief about Nebulas, monsua nebula
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-03
Updated: 2020-04-03
Packaged: 2021-02-28 22:01:04
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,074
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23454439
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Silent_but_Artemis/pseuds/Silent_but_Artemis
Summary: After the fall-out of The Last Jedi, the Resistance has scurried to another planet to regroup on, taking with them the few people they had left. Nestled inside of the Monsua Nebula was a hidden planet that General Organa had previous knowledge of. Morale is still low for the Resistance, so a friendly competition between their Best Pilot and their Jedi is proposed. While neither wants to compete against the other, the boosted spirits of their friends and fellow soldiers leave Rey and Poe no choice but to agree to go along with the tournament. Tests of flight lay ahead of them, but Poe get's a little more than he bargained for in terms of testing his skill as a pilot.
Relationships: BB-8 & Poe Dameron, Poe Dameron & Finn, Poe Dameron & Finn & Rey, Poe Dameron & Rey
Comments: 1
Kudos: 21





	Silver Lining

**Author's Note:**

> Hi all! 
> 
> Hope you enjoy this little story. There are no ships in this except for the best kind: friendship! 
> 
> Also, forgive the inadequate descriptions of the Monsua Nebula in this, but I wanted to leave it up to people's imaginations for the flight portions. I may add some art/gifs to this to show some of the flight patterns taken and to flesh out what exactly is happening if the words aren't enough
> 
> Enjoy!   
> ~SbA

Rey was an excellent pilot, ask anyone and they would agree whole-heartedly. Her quick reflexes and almost perfect instincts gave her an edge over most pilots, thanks to the Force and her knowledge of the ins-and-outs of a variety of ships. She had a lot of beginners luck, but she backed it up with skill that was the envy of plenty of Resistance pilots.

Poe was not one of those pilots who envied her seeming ease at flying. He knew she possessed Force abilities that more than likely aided her in the air as much as they did on the ground. That being said, a new rumor (more of a hypothesis in Poe’s opinion) had been going around that her flying skills trumped Poe’s.

While given more experience and practice, Poe thought she probably would be able to best him, but as it stands, that had not happened yet. Still, word spread to the other pilots in his squadron and soon a competition was proposed: a training run that neither Poe or Rey would have ever seen that they have to get through with efficiency and finesse.

As it was expected that Rey would fly the _Falcon_ and Poe, his X-Wing, the course was to be adjusted to fit their ship differences, mainly speed and maneuverability. While Poe’s X-Wing was swift and agile, the Millennium _Falcon_ had many tricks up it’s sleeve, that included superior fire-power and greater momentum. They both had advantages and disadvantages that each pilot would need to take into account for their run of it.

It was the only thing everyone was talking about on the base, and Poe couldn’t help but feel a little bit anxious about the whole thing. Most were laying money down on the Jedi, saying the Force was too powerful of a thing to not side with. Others backed the Commander, stating experience would be the real deciding factor in this competition. Too many people came up to Poe, telling him he had to win to make them money, while others told him to not feel so bad when he lost. It was driving him up the wall.

Needless to say, this led to some tension between him and Rey. Since they were two parts to a trio, they couldn’t really avoid each other without probably avoiding Finn too. Luckily, Finn was nice enough to not mention where he stands in any of it, saying that he was biased because he knew them both too well. Poe was pretty sure he was just saying that because he actually thought Rey would win.

Today was the day of the competition, and Poe just wanted to go back to sleep.

_If I hear one more person tell me they have money riding on this, I might actually just hop in Black One and fly away instead of doing this._

He still didn’t know who had started all of this, but he hated them. It wasn’t that Poe thought he would lose, it was more that he was afraid of the consequences of winning. Rey needed a win, now more than ever after losing Luke Skywalker and all that had happened with Kylo Ren.

Morale amongst the few Resistance fighters they had left had risen some in the face of this “friendly competition”. It almost felt like most people on the base wanted Rey to win too, if only to reassure themselves that she was the real deal and that she would have to power to win this war for them.

There was too much pressure over all of this, and it made Poe uneasy.

Glancing at BB-8, who had just rolled off his charging station, Poe smiled slightly and huffed out a sigh.

“Guess I better go out there and face the music, right buddy?”

BB-8 chirped an affirmative, assuring Poe that they would do their best out there today.

As Poe prepared to leave, he paused for a moment, and looked at his astro-mech.

“Do you think we’re going to win? Or are you on Rey’s side?” He regretted asking the question as soon as it left his lips. He didn’t want to make BB-8 feel bad for thinking Rey would win, but ever since Poe had had to listen to BB-8 go on and on about how amazing Rey was, and how she had done this with the Force and gotten to fly the _Falcon_ and how she even understood binary- it was ridiculous.  
Poe felt a little, dare he think it, jealous of her. It made him feel horrible, especially since she was his friend and was actually that amazing. Was it so wrong to want to keep the one thing that made Poe amazing to himself?

His dialogue of self-loathing was interrupted by BB-8’s confident reply.

_[Friend-Rey is an amazing pilot, but she is not my Pilot. He is the best.]_

Poe would be lying if he said that simple statement didn’t make his eyes glisten just a bit. But he couldn’t savor the moment for long, he needed to get to the hangar for some flying. At least this would all be over soon enough.

With his droid’s words in mind, Poe strode out of his room and began his trek. He stopped by the mess hall on the way to snag some fruit, he didn’t want to get hungry while he was flying, and stress eating was definitely a thing this morning.

When he reached the hangar, he was not shocked to see most of the base’s occupants already there. Rey and Finn were standing next to the _Falcon_ , clearly deep in some conversation as Rey paced slightly. Snap and Jessika were closer to where Poe was so he went over to them first.

“You ready for this Commander? Wouldn’t want you to embarrass the squadron,” Jessika joked. It actually made Poe feel a little bit better about all of this that she was being her normal self.

“Poe will be fine Jess, besides, aren’t you the one who said you would dye your hair neon pink and orange if he lost? You’d end up being more embarrassed than anyone else if Rey wins.” Snap replied, an easy smile making it’s way on to his face as Poe chuckled at Jess.

“Wow Jess, I didn’t realize you were so confident in my flying prowess.”

“Let’s just say Commander that there’s a reason I trust you to have my back on missions, you may run your mouth about your piloting, you usually walk the walk as much as you talk the talk.”

While the quirk of her mouth indicated her words were still in jest, there was a thread of truth to them that gave Poe a similar feeling that BB-8’s words did.

_They believe in me,_ he thought somewhat in surprise.

The feeling carried him through his pre-flight checks and scared away some of the jitteriness. It was time for them to go through the training run.  
They flipped a coin to see who would go first. Rey was the lucky winner of that (Poe hoped it was the only thing she was a lucky winner of today). She prepared the _Falcon_ and set off, with Karé and Iolo feeding her the instructions of the route and the different stages of it. There was an obstacle course portion, a shooting portion for both targets in the air and on the ground, a dog-fight portion with a few of the Resistance pilots flying and shooting low-powered bursts at them, a flight into space with a hard atmospheric entrance, and finally a hot landing.  
Poe thought it was a bit over the top, but no one asked him.

He watched as the _Millennium Falcon_ lifting off and took flight.

__

She landed beautifully, Poe actually was truly impressed. Landing a freight like that on a dime wasn’t easy, and she handled it like a pro. Her run was downright perfect, and it really left a bad taste in his mouth.

“Get it together Dameron,” he muttered to himself as he did final checks on his X-wing. He would start his run as soon as Rey came out of the ship. Poe ignored the feelings of unease that crept up inside him as he finished the checks.

_Just some a little nervousness, nothing the be bothered by._

“You are clear to take off Commander, good luck out there,” Snap said through the comms.

“You will be starting in the obstacle portion like Rey did, but after that the portions will be at random until the landing, so be prepared for that.”

“Gotcha, will do,” Poe replied, starting the engines and rising from the hangar. She felt a little sluggish at the start, but with a little momentum _Black One_ was in perfect form.

Poe eased her through the obstacles, dodging trees and passing through impossibly close cracks of the mountains of the planet. Any fears he had about this little competition faded with the exhilaration of flying and pushing the X-wing to her limits. The obstacle course was over all too soon and Poe was instructed to go into the air-to-ground shooting portion, aiming for different piles of branches that were situated in a field not too far from the base. It was a piece of cake, almost too easy since the branches weren’t actually moving. Over-all he was feeling good about himself. No matter the results, he could definitely say he enjoyed the exercise as a whole.

Next was the space part with reentry. It didn’t sound like a big deal to most non-pilots, but reentry could be a rough ride with increased heating. It also required a specific kind of angle that, if done wrong, would make the whole thing much more damaging to the ship. It was child’s play for anyone who had gone in and out of space and atmo battles like Poe and Rey had, he just figured they were running out of ideas for the competition so they tacked this on.

“Let’s take her up and out BB-8,” Poe said, getting a beep in reply.

Breaking the atmosphere and flying into space was always such a rush that never got old. The darkness of space covered in the sparkles of stars bleeding through the vibrant colors of the nebula was a sight to behold. Poe admired it for a moment as he got fully oriented and not caught in the orbit of the planet.

Suddenly his sensors picked up a couple of bogeys coming from within part of the nebula surrounding the planet.

“Guess my dogfight will be taking place out here, huh buddy? Snap did say the order would be random.” _But he didn’t say it would be downright difficult,_ he added to himself.

Preparing his weapons to fire their equivalent of blanks, Poe swung the X-Wing around to face off against his fellow pilots, except as they came into view, Poe realized they were in fact a convoy of TIE fighters. There were about ten of them, but with no destroyer in sight, they seemed more likely to have just been on a simple patrol and probably flew into the nebula to check it out.

They wouldn’t have been able to detect Poe until they were as close as they were now, and detecting the planet they were staying on was practically impossible from outside the nebula. So this was all just his luck, as it always was.

“Snap we got a problem up here. I see ten First Order TIE fighters out here with me!” Poe said into his comm, to only get static back.

“Snap?! Do you copy?”

When again he only received static back, Poe slammed his hand into the the side of the cock-pit in anger before switching his weapons back to normal photons. The TIE’s were still a little ways off to be engaging yet but it was only a matter of time.

BB-8’s beeps of worry lined up with his own fears. They couldn’t take the TIE’s down to the planet where practically their entire force was concentrated in the hangar. It would be as easy as it was for Poe to shoot those piles of sticks for the TIE’s to crush the remaining Resistance. He had to buy them some time and keep the TIE’s scrambling so that one of them couldn’t escape the nebula and alert the First Order of their location. The nebula was more than likely causing interference for their communications too so Poe would take advantage of that for as long as possible.

“Okay buddy we have to hold them off out here until they notice we’ve been out here too long and send someone out to help us, or until we can reach them. I want you to send out our distress beacon so that if signal gets through they know we have company,” he instructed, preparing his weapons and his resolve for the long battle ahead.

The TIE’s came into range and Poe started firing at them, attempting to separate them some and get them out of formation. TIE pilots didn’t seem to do so well when they had to improvise their flight patterns.

He flew directly at them, going right in the middle of the group, causing them to scatter to avoid collision, before pulling the stick to the side quickly to sharply turn around and pick off two from the center of the group.

“Two down, too many to go,” he muttered as he pulled some abrupt barrel rolls to get several of the other ones off his tail.

The nebula provided some cover for Poe as he led his pursuers through the electrical storms rampant throughout it, diving behind pieces of asteroids and through star dust to lose them. One TIE was nicked by a smaller piece of asteroid that it’s scanners couldn’t detect that well this close to the storms, but it didn’t slow it down much. Four others were tailing Poe, and he was struggling to lose them.

While he had plenty of experience flying, flying in a nebula was generally conceived as stupid and a bad idea. There was too much unpredictability with it, and if your sensors were blind you may never be able to escape it.

The atmospheric cyclones within the nebula also provided their own problems as they created partial gravity wells before dispersing. The strain on the ship was bad in those, but trying to avoid enemy fights while also navigating this kind of environment was going to test every bit of skill Poe had.

He used every trick he had to take out another TIE, leaving seven remaining out there. Four continued following him, but he had no idea where the other three were as he continued to lead them away from the planet.

“How’s that distress beacon doing BB-8? Do you think it got through?” He asked as he felt beads of sweat trickle down his face. The oscillating strain on the ship was taking it’s toll on his body too. He already felt an ache radiating from his torso due to the changing G's from the gravity wells and twisting power of the cyclones.

_[Friend-Poe, I do not think anyone has received it,]_ came the sad beeps.

“Alright, we will have to pull out all the stops then,” Poe stated, trying to keep himself on the task at hand. But it felt like he had been out here fighting this battle alone for ages.

Even if his friends realized something was wrong, he was probably too far away from the base’s location on the planet for them to be able to find him with their sensors. He was on his own. His only way out of this was to destroy all the TIE fighters. If one got out of this nebula and relayed their location he and the rest of the Resistance would be thoroughly screwed.

_Damn it,_ he thought as he skirted another gravity well that formed out of no where. _Keep it together, keep it together._

Poe somehow managed to fly between beams of lightning in the electrical storm ahead of him, smiling slightly when one of his pursuers was not so lucky and lost all power to his ship momentarily. Poe turned around and took the shot, officially bringing the number down to six enemies.

He whooped a little as he came up behind another one, trying to line up the shot.

“Come on, come on, come _on,_ ” he whispered under his breath over and over again. Just as he was about in the perfect position a high-pitched shrill came from BB-8 alerting him of the missing three fighters coming from behind him out of a dense portion of the nebula.

Poe pulled a tight corkscrew for evasive action, firing off two photon torpedoes at the targeted fighter before boosting to get some distance between him and the newly regrouped TIE’s. His torpedo’s hit their mark, leaving five still in the nebula with him. They were all firing at him, and he bobbed and weaved through more space debris.

He noticed a particularly bad atmospheric cyclone not too far from his position. If he entered it he would get tossed around and might be able to use his boosters to pop out of it fast enough to flip around and shoot all the TIE’s at once if they get locked in the pull of the cyclone. They would be stuck spinning with it while he would be outside of it picking them off, that is unless they realized what he was doing and boosted fast enough to break free of it’s pull. It was the best idea he had.

“Go big or go home,” Poe said with a whole lot of false bravado. _Black One_ might not be able to take the strain of any of that, and worse, he was going to have to have instant reaction times despite being pulled in so many directions. The G-force on his body alone to boost out might make him black out so he had to pull the maneuver off perfectly to make it work.

He flew a serpentine path, baiting the TIE fighters to come closer to his ship before sharply jerking the stick and taking _Black One_ into the cyclone. The power of it was more than he expected and Poe was plastered to the side of the cock-pit. Loud chirps from BB-8 got him back on track though, and Poe hit the boosters, aiming to get out of the death spiral he was currently stuck in. The pressure on his body was excruciating as his ship was pulled in two different directions. A creaking noise echoed out and cracks started forming along the reinforced glass of the canopy. Poe ignored them though, just like he ignored the black dots in his vision, and the numb-tingling in his fingers, and the pounding of his skull. He pushed through all of it to pull one final 180 degree flip as the X-wing broke free of the cyclone, letting loose a mass of shots from his laser cannons, the red energy lighting up the area. Poe counted off each explosion he saw even as the warning went off for a breach to ship, he couldn’t look away as the few remaining TIE’s were either taken down by his cannons or from the debris of their fallen comrades’ ships.

Everything was going into slow motion now, he was losing oxygen fast, and there was a creeping sense of cold taking over his body. What he thought was sweat trickling down his face was actually blood from his nose. Poe could hear the loud shrill of BB-8 yelling at him, but Poe just wanted to sleep.

“Take us home, buddy. Take us hm..” the words got stuck in his throat and Poe felt himself surrender to the darkness that had been hovering on the edges of his vision. He slumped to the side, out like a light.

___

A sense of vague warmth and darkness are the first things he notices when awareness starts coming back to him. He remained in that place of partial wakefulness for some time, until sounds started filtering in. The sound of hushed whispers and quiet beeps filled his ears and Poe began to open his eyes. It took a couple of blinks for everything to come into focus, but when it did he saw Finn, Rey, and BB-8 sitting next to him looking intently at him.

“Hey Poe, you with us?” Finn asked cautiously.

Poe thought the question over for a second, before slowly nodding. With movement came pain however, and he winced some as his head smarted even at the small nod. Then the full body ache made itself known and Poe began to regret whatever thing happened to put him in this hospital bed.

“Don’t try to move, you put yourself through the ringer. I’m going to go get Dr. Kalonia. She can explain what’s wrong with you better than I can.” Finn rose from his chair and exited quickly, leaving Poe with his two other visitors.

Rey looked exceedingly uncomfortable sitting there. He wondered why she seemed so on edge, but couldn’t concentrate on the thought long enough to voice his concern. Maker he was tired. Everything was getting a fuzzy edge to it again and Poe descended back into the abyss readily. He could sort things out later.

___

The next time he woke up, Leia was by his bedside.

“Good morning Commander, or to be more accurate, good evening,” she said quietly to him.

He tried to offer his own greeting but it died in the desert that was his throat right now. The General noticed his problem and stuck a cup with a straw in it near his mouth, letting him mitigate the parchedness some.

“What happened?” He finally got out. His memories were a collage of images and sounds that didn’t seem to form a cohesive timeline.

“Well, what’s the last thing you remember?”

Taking a moment to wrangle his thoughts, Poe struggled to figure out which memories came before the others.

“I think I remember a cyclone in the nebula? But it looked all wrong, like there were extra colors to it that shouldn’t have been there - it’s hard to explain.”

“That’s okay, we’re in no rush to get the story from you. BB-8 has told us enough for us to make our own conclusions. You faced off ten TIE fighters on your own in the nebula and got a little banged up in the process. BB-8 was able to navigate you back to the planet and land your ship.”

This just led to so many questions popping up but he would have to wait to get them answered because at that moment the doctor came in.

“Poe Dameron, you have got to be the most accident prone pilot I have ever met.”

“Does it help that I don’t remember what I did this time?” He smiled at her wanly.

“No, it makes it worse,” a grin quirked on her lips before Dr. Kalonia cut to the chase. “Poe you have some cracked and bruised ribs from being tossed around the cock-pit. Your brain had some slight swelling from the pressure that was placed on it, and you suffered some hypoxia, which is why you’re experiencing some memory-loss and confusion. That should clear up on it’s own.” She paused for a moment and Poe was afraid the real bad news was coming.

“You will be on bed rest for the next two days and then you will be grounded for another three weeks until we can be certain your body has fully recovered.”

“Three weeks?! Are you serious?”  
She gave him a stern but caring look. “You could have died, the only reason you didn’t is because of that hard head of yours and your droid. Now just take some time to relax and power-down some, you’ve earned it.”

With that she left, leaving him alone with Leia again.

“She’s right, you need some rest. Next time you’re awake I’m sure Finn will be here and he can answer all the questions you have.”

Poe wanted to assure the General that he was awake now, but the exhaustion began to tug at him, and he fell asleep to the sound of her humming a slow tune, almost like a lullaby.

___

His next experience with wakefulness was greeted by the site of Finn and BB-8 arguing over something. Of course Finn still didn’t understand binary, so his portion was very one-sided. BB-8 was just amused by the entire thing.

“What did he do now?” Poe asked, drawing the attention of both his visitors.

A mixture of beeps and basic assaulted his ears as BB-8 and Finn began talking at the same time. He waved his hands , saying “woah, woah, I can’t keep track of both of you at once. Brain injury, remember?”

That quieted them enough for Poe to have a little fun.  
“I was asking BB-8 the question.”

The look of shock and false-anger that came across Finn’s face was worth every bit of pain the laughter that spilled out of Poe caused. He had to brace his sides some to lessen it.

“See that’s what you get when you act cheeky,” Finn shot back, a smile taking it’s place on his countenance.

They fell into a peaceful silence, Poe mostly because he was trying to stop the aching in his torso, and Finn because he was just happy to have his friend awake. The silence was broken by the door opening.

“Finn I need your opinion about- oh, you’re awake.”

It was Rey in her usual attire, looking for all the world like she had just been given some bad news, and that news was Poe was awake. It left him feeling a bit unsettled, but he plowed forward anyway.

“Yep, definitely awake over here. Don’t mind me, you two can talk about whatever.” He tried to sound nonchalant, but he probably came off more as wanting to eavesdrop, which was closer to the truth.

“Yeah Rey, you can ask me anything,” Finn added.

“No, not here. Outside?” She asked in a stilted sort of way, piercing Finn with a look that was meant to convey something that Poe couldn’t work out.

_Am I making her uncomfortable?_ Poe wondered as Finn acquiesced and rose from his chair and walked out with no complaint or hint as to what this was about. As soon as they left the hospital room, Poe turned back to BB-8 with a quizzical glance.

“You got any idea what that was about?”

_[I can neither confirm nor deny anything.]_

“Well thanks for that, my own droid has sided against me.” Poe tried not to sound so petulant when he said it, but he was really not putting a lot of effort today into hiding his true feelings. His head hurt, his ribs hurt, and everything had some kind of ache which made him tired and a little frustrated.

_[You will find out soon enough, Friend-Poe.]_

“That sounds ominous,” Poe muttered as Finn entered back into the room sans Rey.

“Did I scare her off?” he asked.

“Uh, no, she’s just.. uh.. busy, yeah, she’s just a little busy right now. I mean hey, that’s what happens when the Resistance’s best pilot is out of commission, right?” Finn re-took his seat and completely failed to sound like he was not covering for Rey. Poe said as much not because he’s usually so rude, but he just almost died apparently and beating around the bush took too much effort.

Finn hesitated for a second then deflated some in the chair.

“Poe, Rey was the first person to get to you after BB-8 landed your ship. I think she thought you were dead, you certainly looked it. She’s feeling a little guilty about all of it, you know? Like if it wasn’t for her you wouldn’t have been in that position in the first place.”

“That’s ridiculous, it’s not like she wanted to do this competition anymore than I did,” Poe stated quickly.

“I know and I told her that, but I don’t think she believes me. Maybe she thinks you actually blame her. I know you two haven’t exactly been best buddies since you met, and I think that’s contributing to this mindset.

“Even Leia tried to convince her otherwise, but she didn’t listen to her either.” Finn trailed off there, concern blanketing his expression.

“She probably needs to hear it from me,” Poe whispered out. He was no stranger to taking on more than his fair share of guilt. He just didn’t understand why Rey was taking it all so hard.

“I survived though, right? Sure I’m a little banged up, but no worse for wear. It’s not the first time I’ve had a bad flight, why is Rey feeling so bad about it?”

“Uhhh, how much do you know about what happened?”

_Why is everybody phrasing it that way and handling me with kid gloves?_

“I know what Leia told me, which wasn’t much. She said you would tell me?” Poe looked expectantly at his friend.

Finn took a deep breath and started the tale of explaining all that had happened during that fateful flight.

“So Snap put camera’s on both of you guys’ ships to get the most accurate of viewings for different fly-bys and angles. Yours was technically BB-8, but Snap still acts like it was a feat to get it setup.” Finn went on to tell of the TIE fighters and the nebula.

“BB-8 gave commentary to fill in any blanks that the video couldn’t show us, and from there we had a pretty solid understanding of everything.”

“Alright, what part are you avoiding? Did I accidentally alert the First Order where we are? Did I blow something up I shouldn’t have, what’s the deal here?”

Finn looked down and in a quick rush said, “ _BlackOne’sdamagedbeyondrepairandbasicallyblewupafterwegotyouout.”_

Poe stared blankly at him for a moment, clearly taking time to parse through the rushed statement. Finn could tell the moment it hit him.

“ _Blew up!?_ ”

It took some time to rein Poe in from the general upset-ment that he felt hearing this. He was no stranger to losing ships, but this one was _his_ ship, the one he had worked so hard on, the one he had used on so many important successful missions.

“Nothing was salvageable?”

Finn shook his head no sadly.

“Oh. So that’s why Rey feels bad, because I lost my ship to this,” Poe figured out. She would be the one to think that to be an offence that could be blamed on her.

“Go and get her back in here,” he all but ordered Finn.

“Poe I don’t think she’s going to want to.”

“I don’t care, tell her it’s about Black One.”

Finn eyed him, as if sizing up his intentions.

“Okay, but if you’re going to yell at her I will let BB-8 taze you, hurt or not.”

BB-8’s chirps of agreement only solidified Poe’s assertion that BB-8 had abandoned him for much cooler friends. Finn left the room for a minute while Poe tried to send BB-8 silent glances that spoke of betrayal, in a joking sort.

“You should taze me if I ever yelled at someone for something that wasn’t there fault,” he said quietly, reaching out and resting his hand on the little astro-mech’s head. The happy beeps that followed were like a glimpse of hope in the sadness of losing his beloved ship.

It took more time than Poe expected for Finn to drag Rey back, and while drag was figurative, it probably held some literal meaning in this case.

She stood before him now, shoulders back as if to brace herself for the verbal attack she fully expected to get. It was times like this that it really hit Poe that Rey didn’t have much experience in social scenarios like this, and that she must feel so awkward and out of place. The thought helped soften his pain-induced pinched expression.

He had to get this point across to her, and that meant directness.

“Rey, stop feeling so guilty about _Black One_. While it almost hurts to say this, she was just a ship. It was bound to happen one day, at least I wasn’t still in her when she exploded, which is thanks to you for getting to me so quickly.”

Rey had the most shocked face he had ever seen on her.

“Now stop moping and be proud because you won the competition,” Poe added at the end as he shifted some in the hospital bed to get more comfortable. All this serious talk had made a headache start to pound behind his eyes. He really needed to go back to sleep.

“Won? I didn’t win, I think it was a unanimous agreement that you won,” Rey sputtered back.

“Huh, well fancy that,” he replied and let loose a big yawn.

“I think we should let you get some more rest,” Finn whispered, rising from his chair.

The three of them left and Poe fell into a blissful slumber.

___

It had been a couple of days since Poe had helped Rey resolve her guilt and it was finally time for him to leave the infirmary. His brain wasn’t swelling anymore and while his ribs still pained him, the general bruising and aches across his body had calmed down substantially thanks to the bed rest.

Now Finn and Rey were leading him out to the hangar to show him what they described to be a ‘must see’. Something about the best parts of both his and Rey’s flying was made into a little video as Resistance propaganda, and they wanted him to approve of it.

They were walking a little ahead of him and kept checking behind them, as if to make sure he was still following.

“You guys know I know how to get to the hangar right?” He said amusedly.

“Yeah, but I wouldn’t put it past you to try and sneak away,” Finn replied, Rey nodding her head beside him.

“I would never,” Poe said, feigning a look of innocence. He had ditched them multiple times in his new-found freedom, mostly to go get food or to go sleep, but they didn’t need to know that.

Finn gave him a knowing glance before they arrived in the hangar.

“Here we are,” Finn said with flourish, acting like a salesman showing off a space.

“I don’t see why you need to make such a big deal out of-” Poe fell silent when he saw the dark ship in the corner of the hangar where _Black One_ usually sat. He had avoided looking over there initially, but couldn’t help but dart his eyes across the hangar to see something sitting in it’s place.

“What is that?” He asked, a little bit of excitement filtering through.

“Why don’t you go and find out yourself,” Rey said cryptically.

While his body wasn’t up for running just yet, he did adopt a brisk walking pace to get there as fast as possible. From a distance it almost looked like _Black One,_ and he was almost mad that everyone had made him think his ship was gone. But as he got closer, the subtle differences were made known.

She was a T-85, with black, orange, and silver highlights painted in. Larger than his previous T-70, Poe stared in awe at the ship.

“They found it at a junkyard, a little worse for wear, but Rose and Rey got it fixed up really nice. I don’t know if they slept at all getting it done,” Finn said from behind him. Rey had opted to stay away, letting him have his moment.

“They did all of this for me?” He really couldn’t believe it.

“Yep, for some reason they think you’re worth it,” Finn teased back, placing his hand on Poe’s shoulder.

“Now that this is out of the way, there really is some footage we want to show you.”

Poe took one last look at the ship, a smile playing on his lips. He then walked with Finn at a much slower pace back to where Rey stood. He had a feeling it was always going to be them three facing the world. But at least they had each other.

_Fin_

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading! Constructive criticism is greatly appreciated as are questions or other nice comments.


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